Posts Tagged With: Gentiles

A Roman centurion, a Jewish widow, and a woman of ill repute evoke deep emotions in Jesus. Meanwhile, the Pharisees lurk everywhere around in the shadows and they stir up Jesus’ anger. This surely is the Gospel of Luke.

A Roman centurion believes that if Jesus just says the word his slave will be healed from afar, especially because the centurion believes he is unworthy to entertain this great rabbi in his house. Jesus was “astonished” (7:9) by this level of faith yet to be encountered amongst the Jews and heals the slave.

Jesus walks up on a widow — about to hit one of the lowest rungs of their society — whose dead son is being carried out to be buried. Jesus sees this and is “very sorry for her” (7:13), so he raises the boy back to life.

“Anointing Jesus’ Feet” by Frank Wesley

A woman of “a known bad character” (7:37) barges into a dinner party at a Pharisees house and anoints his feet with costly oil and her tears of repentance. Jesus falls all over himself praising her for the hospitality she gave that Simon had not.

There are two things Jesus responds to: faith and need. Unfortunately, the more religious you are the less you need faith. Religion has a way of making us far too sure of our own righteousness. Sadly, the higher up the social ladder we are, the less we need or at least sense that we need. But when we realize how much we need, how unworthy we are of blessing, how unholy we are Jesus opens the doors of his blessings. At these moments our hearts are open to receive great love and in response show great love.

So the conclusion I draw is this: she must have been forgiven many sins! Her great love proves it! But if someone has been forgiven only a little, they will love only a little. (7:47)

What caught your eye in this chapter?

Though he never identifies himself in the book, the author of this gospel is almost universally acknowledged to be Luke, the “doctor” (Col. 4:14) and “fellow worker” with Paul (Phlm 24) mentioned in Acts in several places. This sure identification comes from the tight connection between the Gospel of Luke and Acts, both of which are addressed to “most excellent Theophilus” in what is clearly a two-volume set. Because the author of Acts identifies himself in the “we passages” of Acts as one of Paul’s companions on his second missionary journey, there is confidence this is Luke.

Who was Theophilus? The name simply means “lover of God,” so some have posited that this was only a general title for any Christians who would read this book. However, the title “most excellent” suggests this was a specific person and an esteemed one. The dedications at the beginning of Luke and Acts were common in Roman literature as a way to honor the patron and publisher of a work. Thus, Theophilus would not only have been learning from this gospel himself, but also been responsible for duplicating it and spreading it around. The introduction of Luke makes it obvious this is an apologetic:

So, most excellent Theophilus, since I had traced the course of all of it scrupulously from the start, I thought it a good idea to write an orderly account for you, so that you may have secure knowledge about the matters in which you have been instructed. (1:3-4)

Anyone who has read the gospels know that there is much overlap in the books (53% of the book of Mark is in Luke in some form), yet there is always something unique about each. Those unique qualities give us a window into why they were written. The Gospel of Luke is by far the most Gentile gospel of the four. With his Greek name, Luke was likely a Gentile and one associated with Paul’s later work in Achaia and beyond. His gospel was largely written in the most formal, educated Greek style and has a marked order and structure. It is also the most exhaustive, moving from an extensive birth narrative to his ascension. Theophilus is also a Greek name, so he too was likely from the culturally Greek or Roman parts of the Empire.

Luke’s most characteristic trait is the book’s attention to the typically marginalized of the Roman culture. Women are more important in this gospel than the others. The poor are given focus and dignity. Sinners are included in Jesus’ circles more intentionally. Gentiles show up often in Luke, no surprise given the book’s supposed audience.

In these dog days on July, it will be good to walk the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea as we head to Jerusalem with the one who “came to seek and save the lost” (19:10).

Today we move from one my most daunting passages to understand to one of my favorites. Paul is known for structuring his letters with long theological sections about beliefs followed by much more practical sections about ethics. Romans 12:1 is that pivot point in this book.

We use the word “worship” in many ways. I have to wonder if most of the time we don’t reduce that word down to far less than what God intended worship to be. Worship is that thing that happens at the church building. It is singing and praying and preaching (and dancing and rocking a guitar or drum kit, if you church does that sort of thing). Worship is what some person “leads.” Worship has a set soundtrack. There is a “worship hour.” Worship has an “order” of set events. Sure, you can worship anywhere — on a mountain top, down by the lake, in a hospital room, in a flash mob at the local mall — but still we are talking about the same action: singing songs and praying prayers.

Is worship this? . . .

The Roman church Paul was writing had also reduced the idea of worship down to far less than what God intended. For them it was about religious activities and rituals and sacred days. It was about symbolic acts like circumcision. It was about what food was eaten or not. Worship was a cultural expression and both the Jewish and Gentile Christians wanted to stamp their own ideals onto that expression. In short, worship was what took place when “the saints meet.”

The word “worship” comes from an Old English word “worth-ship.” The connotation of this word is to show honor to the inherent worth of the person being worshipped. It is tied to the ancient practice of “kissing the feet of” the person being honored. Worship is saying to another you are the one, not me. You are the focus of life, not me. You matter. I adore you and want to do your will. Can you sing that in a song? Of course. Can you pray those sentiments? Definitely. But it is so much more than that.

Paul reminds the Roman Christians of this point:

So, my dear family, this is my appeal to you by the mercies of God: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Worship like this brings your mind into line with God’s. (12:1)

Worship is not a religious activity that takes place in a sacred place at a sacred time. Worship is to happen everywhere all of the time. God is not looking for some sacrifice of an animal or a sacrifice of discomfort in circumcision or a sacrifice of diet by avoiding pork or a sacrifice of time by observing the Sabbath. Or let’s update that today: God is not looking for a sacrifice of time on a Sunday morning or a sacrifice of money put in an offering plate or a sacrifice of career by being an inner-city social worker or a sacrifice of zip code by living frugally and denying our comfort and status. God wants us — all of us — as the sacrifice. God wants us to tie our worship to how we live each day, as “living sacrifices.” God wants acts of worship that are tied deeply to our “mind” and that shape how that mind thinks. Everything we are and everything we do is intended to be worship.

For the ancient Roman Christians that meant that the most worshipful actions they could take would be to love (12:9-21). They needed to worry less about what they did to their bodies and more about what they did with their bodies. They needed to worry less about what food they ate and more about with whom they ate or refused to eat. They needed to try less to get others to become like them and more so to become like others so they together might become like Christ. And they most needed to do this with the people they disagreed with most. Love is the act of worship God wants most.

Romans 9-11 is certainly on my list of the top five most difficult passages. Maybe top three. So I don’t feel like I have much to offer today. But I guess that is another benefit to a comprehensive reading plan: you can’t avoid hard passages!

Here are the two main points I gather from the chapter:

1. God can do what He wants:

Paul describes God as having at that time a “remnant” of faithful Jews that He has chosen by grace (11:5-6). At the same time God hardens the hearts of other Jews so as to open a door for Gentiles (11:7-9, 25). Then God uses this influx of Gentiles to drawn back Jews through jealousy (11:12). But the Gentile Christians in Rome should bear in mind that the same God who cut off Jews because of unbelief can do the same to Gentiles who get a big head and stumble (11:20). This is a very active, sovereign view of God.

Vincent van Gogh, “Olive Trees”

2. But God is more than fair:

This second point ameliorates any anxiety about such a high degree of divine control that the first point may bring. The central question of the chapter is stated in the first sentence: “Has God abandoned his people [the Jews]?” The resounding answer throughout the chapter is “no” (11:2). Even those Jews who had “tripped up” presumably by unbelief will not have “fall[en] completely” (11:11). God wants to use Jewish jealousy to save Gentiles (11:14), and if those Jews return to belief they can be grafted back into God’s olive tree (11:23). In what might be the biggest statement of God’s extravagant kindness, 11:28-29 seems to suggest that God will even honor his promises to the Jewish patriarchs to Jews who were still choosing not to believe. God will keep his promises, even if they don’t. We can rest assured that God will assert his power in a manner that is exborinantly fair.

A trap very easily fallen into when reading Romans is to bypass the original context and focus solely on what Romans can teach us. Romans 9-11 is a difficult section of Scripture, but that is especially true when we forget about the original context.

Any good Jew in Paul’s time would have been tempted to appeal to their chosen-people status as grounds for salvific confidence. The logic would have gone something like this: Israel was chosen by God, I am a Jew, so I am good with God. That line of logic has a modern equivalent: the Church is composed of God’s elect in this world, I go to church, so I am good with God.

In Romans 10 Paul is taking on this faulty thinking. God isn’t looking for heritage or membership, He is looking for people who truly trust Him and His faithfulness to His promises. God isn’t looking for people who “establish a covenant status of their own” (10:3), He is looking for people who have faith in their hearts, confess that faith with their mouths, and ask with dependency for God to save them (10:10-13). That invitation was given to the Jews and some received it, though others did not (10:21). That invitation is also open to all because it relies upon God’s goodness not those being saved.

If the Jewish Christians in the Roman church thought that being a Jew seals the deal, they missed the boat. If we think being a church member ensures salvation, we too are just as lost.

Sometimes to really appreciate the good news we have to first understand the bad news. It seems this is what Paul has been doing in Romans and it all comes to a head in Romans 3.

Lest the Jewish and Gentile Christians in the Roman church who have been jockeying with each other for power miss the point, Paul makes everything crystal clear:

Jews as well as Greeks are all under the power of sin. (3:9)

No one is in the right — nobody at all! No one understands, or goes looking for God; all of them alike have wandered astray, together they have all become futile; none of them behaves kindly, no, not one. (3:10-12)

For there is no distinction: all sinned, and fell short of God’s glory. (3:22-23)

Both sides need to stop their posturing for a minute and face a fact. Jew or Gentile, it doesn’t matter. Both are sinful in their own ways. Both are equally sinful. Sin, of some sort, has slithered into their hearts and is slowly taking over. At this point there is only one thing that matters and they are all the same in this way: they are doomed because of sin.

And right at the point of that depressing fact is when Paul gives the first of several statements of the gospel or “good news” in Romans:

By God’s grace they are freely declared to be in the right, to be members of the covenant, through the redemption which is found in the Messiah, Jesus. God put Jesus forth as the place of mercy, through faithfulness, by means of his blood. . . . He declares to be in the right everyone who trusts in the faithfulness of Jesus. (3:24-26)

It isn’t how good we are that matters, it is how good Jesus was. It isn’t what kind of blood we have running through our veins that matters, it is whether we have been covered by Jesus’ blood. It isn’t the rituals we have done that save us, it is the ritual of sacrifice that Jesus did that saves us. Jew, Gentile, Greek, Barbarian, American, Afghani, Iranian, devoted church attender, or tortured soul — it doesn’t matter. We are all the same at the foot of the cross. Sinners saved by grace.

What one phrase from this majestic chapter means the most to you, and why?

Yesterday, Paul seemed to be squarely on the side of the Jewish Christians, one more Jew who saw the Gentiles as an inferior people group and unfit for leadership in the Roman church.

Today, in a piece of literary genius, Paul turns the table completely.

So you have no excuse — anyone, whoever you are, who sit in judgment! When you judge someone else, you condemn yourself, because you, who are behaving as a judge, are doing the same things. (2:1)

Sure, the Jewish Christians would not be practicing idolatry or sexual immorality or robbery of the conventional sorts. They were not literally like the Gentiles. But that is the problem with self-righteousness. It settles for literalism, and congratulates oneself for not doing some specific act of perversion. Yet the Law had become the Jewish Christians’ idol. And their adultery was spiritual not sexual. They were worshipping their own ability to be good, and stealing God’s glory.

Worse yet, these Jewish Christians had narrowly defined “good.” For them, good meant being of Jewish heritage, being among those chosen by God to have the Law, knowing that Law, being able to teach that Law, following the rituals of that Law like circumcision, food laws, and holidays. Good meant being a good Jew. So defined, yes, they were very good, and their Gentile brothers and sisters did not measure up.

Paul sets the Jewish Christians in Rome straight. Good is not defined by hearing the law or having the law, but by doing it (2:13). Paul goes one further: “Jew” — as in the people cherished by God — isn’t nearly as much about ethnicity as obedience. Circumcision isn’t about getting rid of unclean flesh as much as it is about getting rid of an unclean heart (2:28-29). Therefore, an uncircumcised but morally upright Gentile with a tender heart might actually be a better Jew, than someone who can trace their heritage back to Abraham.

If you are a Jewish Christian in this Roman church you have just been put in your place. These chapters might be a rough start to a letter, but we can be assured that Paul had everyone’s attention at this point.

Imagine you are one of the Jewish Christians in this ethnically divided, prejudicial church and you hear Phoebe read the last part of this chapter aloud. You know Paul can only be talking about Gentiles.

They knew God, but didn’t honor him as God or thank him. (1:21)

They swapped the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of the image of mortal humans — and of birds, animals, and reptiles. (1:23)

They dishonored their bodies among themselves. (1:24)

Men performed shameless acts with men, and received in themselves the appropriate repayment for their mistaken ways. (1:27)

They were filled with all kinds of injustice, wickedness, greed and evil. (1:29)

They know that God has rightly decreed that people who do things like that deserve death. (1:32)

Andrea Mantegna, “Bacchanalia with a Wine Vat” (c. 1500)

If you are one of the Jewish Christians who had started this church in Rome after returning home from Jerusalem after that first Pentecost of the Church (Acts 2), who then had been expelled from Rome by Claudius only to return to a very different, Gentile church, what are you thinking?

See, we were right!

Look what they come from.

Sure, they are Christians now, but can anyone really reform that much?

Their heritage is riddled with perversion, idolatry, and revelry.

We are so much better than they are!

Get rid of circumcision? What comes next? Some pagan festival like the Bacchanalia?

We should be the leaders in this church. You can’t trust people like this.

If you are a Jewish Christian in this Roman church, you are liking this new letter from Paul, a fellow Jew. Preach on, brother!

Romans is a personal favorite of many people. Paul, who almost all agree was the author, touches on almost every major theological belief in this great book, so the next three weeks are sure to be stimulating.

Rome was the center of the New Testament world. A city of several million, it was the political and cultural center of the Roman Empire, home to the Caesars. Rome was the ancient equivalent to New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong or Tokyo. Religion was big in Rome, mainly the worship of the Roman gods and the developing Emperor cult, but there was a large, vibrant, and legal Jewish population in Rome as well. Remember that when Christianity first stated it was considered a Jewish sect so it too was a protected religious movement and not largely persecuted. Christians would suffer severely in Rome but not for another 20 years after the writing of Romans.

Romans was most certainly written in Corinth around AD 55 and delivered to Rome and first read to the church there by the deaconess Phoebe (Romans 16:1).

The purpose for Romans has been described in many ways. Martin Luther read his own issues with the Roman Catholic Church into the book and saw Romans as a treatise against works-oriented religion. It is certainly that, but that characterization has more to do with 16th Century Europe than 1st Century Rome. Others imagine Paul sitting down and writing Romans as a theological compendium, a statement of his beliefs. There is too much that is specific to the Roman church for that to be true, plus that would make Romans truly unique amongst New Testament letters.

Like every other letter in the New Testament, Romans is situational. There was something going on that made Paul write this letter, to a church he had not started nor even visited. Paul had a habit of setting up home bases for his various mission endeavors. First it was Antioch, then Ephesus, now Corinth. Paul’s greatest desire was to get to Spain where the Gospel had not really yet been preached widely (15:23-33). By all appearance, Paul was preparing this Roman church to be his next launching point for that campaign. However, this church was a divided church turned inward on itself in no condition to be involved in outward mission. We know from the ancient Roman historian Suetonius that around AD 49 the emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from Rome because they had been rioting amongst each other concerning a person named “Chrestus” (c.f., Acts 18:2). This likely was an argument between Jews and Christians over Christ. So for a span of five years until Claudius’ death in AD 54 when the Jews would have returned to Rome, this largely Jewish church with a defined Jewish flavor became thoroughly Gentile. Leadership changed. The culture and practices of the church changed. Now in AD 55 we have a power struggle and identity crisis in the Roman church, largely involving ethnicity and customs. Issues like circumcision, food, holidays, a background in paganism, an Abrahamic heritage, and the like would have been hotly debated, and these will pop up a good bit in our readings. Paul is writing a significantly divided and prejudicial Roman church attempting to help them sort out their problems for the sake of the advancing Kingdom of God.

Background aside, Romans is so popular because the Gospel that all of us needs to hear speaks freedom, hope, love, and faith into every situation, whether in ancient Rome, modern Memphis, the Philippines, Malaysia or Canada.

Some times I have to remind myself how I probably would have been cast in the story of Jesus’ life had I been there at the time.

Matthew marches a fast parade of characters past us in this chapter. A man with a skin disease that would have made him unclean. A powerful Roman centurion. An infirmed mother-in-law. Handfuls of demon-possessed and sick people. Two demon-possessed Gentiles from the “other side of the tracks lake” who terrorized their town. A bunch of dirty pig-farmers.

All of these characters have two things in common. One, they were unclean, foreign, odd, “others” who did not fit the mold of the “children of the kingdom” (8:12) and therefore should not be those sought by Jesus. Two, they were all filled with immense faith. They flocked to Jesus for healing. They pleaded dependently for help. At the least, the pig farmers acknowledged Jesus as awe-inspiringly powerful. It is the Roman centurion whose faith stands out the most:

“I’m telling you the truth,” he said to the people who were following. “I haven’t found faith like this — not even in Israel!” (8:10)

But there are also three other characters.

A scribe — a religious functionary who labored with holy words all day long.

A disciple who had decided to make Jesus his “Rabbi.”

A group of disciples (maybe the apostles) who stick close to Jesus, even running to him in a storm.

These are the orthodox ones, the insiders, the chosen ones. They are religious, clean, upstanding citizens. These three are who you would expect to come off looking good in the chapter. But Jesus doesn’t seem to be so sure about the scribe’s claim of commitment (8:19-20). Jesus seems to think the disciple with a dead father is really just making excuses (8:21-22). The disciples with Jesus in the boat that stormy day are sure they are about to die. In contrast to the amazing faith of the Roman centurion, Jesus chastises his own disciples:

“Why are you so scared, you little-faith lot?” (8:26)

The religious don’t come off looking so good in this chapter.

I was born to religious parents. I have been in a church most Sundays of my life. My family went to church every time the doors were open, and other times too to take care of church matters. My father was an elder. My mother a president of a woman’s auxiliary for a Christian school. I went to Christian camp. I graduated from a Christian high school. I have two degrees from Christian colleges. I work for a Christian high school. I am a deacon in a large church. I teach adult Sunday school. I read Christian books and listen to Christian music. My wonderful Christian wife and I named both of our kids biblical names. My blogs are religious. And if I had enough guts to get a tattoo, it would be a cross.

Luke has been following Paul’s judicial proceedings for many chapters, often with tremendous detail. Why do we just end with Paul in house arrest for two years in Rome awaiting trial? We need more closure than that. Was Paul exonerated? Did Jews show up from Jerusalem to plead their side of the case and did it go south for Paul? Was Paul released and freed to go to Spain to preach the gospel as he so desired? Was Paul killed in Rome for some charge brought against him successfully? We are simply left to wonder.

Scholars have taken up the question and posited many a theory. Here are a few:

Acts was intended by Luke to be a legal defense for Paul before the Roman court, thus it had to be completed without these answers.

Things did not turn out well for Paul and it didn’t fit the kind of ending Luke wanted to have so he left these details out.

Luke was forced by sickness, jail, or traveling to finish his account abruptly. Maybe a protegé of Luke finalized the letter quickly after Luke’s unexpected death.

Acts starts with the word “first” (1:1), so maybe Acts was the first volume of two or more intended books about the gospel and the early apostles, but we do not have the later volume(s) or it/they were never written.

The favorite theory amongst conservative scholars (and the one I like) is that Acts does end in the most appropriate way theologically, even if not historically. Paul is not the focus of Luke’s book, the gospel is. Luke starts in 1:8 with a charge from Jesus to take the gospel from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, to the “very ends of the earth,” a place like Rome. Thus, Acts ends with the gospel being preached in Rome with great freedom and acceptance, especially amongst the Gentiles. Luke would have felt like this was a very fitting ending, so the argument goes.

This is now the second book in a row where we come to an abrupt, seemingly incomplete ending. We saw the same thing at the end of Mark. We saw there that Mark seemed to be leaving the reader with the question, “What will you do with Jesus?” Let’s take that same approach here in Acts, just to experiment again.

Maybe Luke wants to leave us with these questions: “What will you do with Paul? What will you do with a gospel that is open to all? What will you do with a church that includes Jews but also Gentiles who are much more receptive to the Gospel?”

Back then, some would have said Paul is a heretic who has hijacked this restored Judaism and perverted into an ecumenical, watered-down movement of grace and acceptance to all. Some would have said Paul has got it exactly right; come join a “new Israel,” no longer defined by race. Some would be quick to write off the Jews because they had their chance. Some would like to muzzle Paul or even kill him.

Interestingly, people say the same things about Paul and other more modern religious thinkers today who say similar things, don’t they? Give me Jesus, but you can keep your Paul.

The question for us, though, as we end this great book of Acts is the same question Caesar will have to answer: “What should I do with Paul?”

Now, that’s a loaded question! And not one I am about to try to answer here. But it is the question the Christians in Antioch were asking.

Grace through faith in Jesus? Definitely!

He [God] purified their [Gentiles] hearts through faith. . . . It is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we shall be saved, just like them. (15:9, 11)

But is there more? At least some of the early Christians thought so:

“They must be circumcised,” they [believers from the party of the Pharisees] said, “and you must tell them to keep the law of Moses.” (15:5)

Much like Acts 2, Acts 15 is one of the more significant chapters in the book. There is so much to say about this chapter. The chapter also produces so many further questions. Some of these observations and questions would be:

When an argument ensued, they gathered together to talk it out.

The Scriptures played a important role in their decision-making (15:15-18), but so did the everyday ministry experiences of the apostles involved (15:12).

Early Christianity was diverse enough to encompass former Pharisees and former prostitutes, Zealots and tax collectors, those with a great level of obedience to the Jewish customs and those who thought those customs were largely irrelevant.

Even after the decision was made to disagree with the Pharisaical Christians, the apostles and elders still accept them as “some of our number” (15:24).

This conflict ends with feelings of “delight,” “encouragement,” and “peace” (15:31-33).

How did the apostles and elders making the decision know what “seemed good to the Holy Spirit” (15:28)?

Why was blood in food deemed that much more important than circumcision or the Sabbath?

This decision was given to Christians in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. Was it also intended to apply to other churches too? For instance, Paul didn’t make a big deal over food sacrificed to idols in Corinth.

Is baptism equivalent to circumcision? Do the principles here regarding circumcision apply to modern debates over baptism?

What modern issues of debate would be in line with the topic of law observance? Worship styles, gender roles, marital history, sexual preference?

However, I don’t want us to miss the big point in this chapter, so important that Luke says it twice:

Therefore this is my judgment: we should not cause extra difficulties for those of the Gentiles who have turned to God. (15:19)

For it seemed good to the holy spirit and to us not to lay any burden on you beyond the following necessary things. (15:28)

This did not mean there were no boundaries or requirements. The Gentiles in Antioch were expected to avoid food associated with pagan idolatry, food that would still have a good amount of blood in it, and sexual perversions (15:20, 29). Still, the apostles and elders decided to go the path of least resistance. They endeavored to place as few barriers as possible between God and those Gentiles seeking Him. Important to any debate Christians might have today regarding what it takes to be saved should be this same principle: don’t make it any more difficult than it has to be.

As Paul and Barnabas were leaving, they [Jews in the synagogue] begged them to come back the next sabbath and tell them more about these things. Many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed them once the synagogue was dismissed. They spoke to them some more, and urged them to remain in God’s grace.

On the next sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with righteous indignation, and spoke blasphemous words against what Paul was saying. (13:42-45)

At first, when Paul and Barnabas were in a synagogue, the Jews were interested and wanted to hear more. Less than a week later when the whole city — Jew and Gentile — shows up to hear Paul and Barnabas, the Jews who were rather receptive turn on them in anger and have them driven out of the city.

Why such a strong change?

I am wondering if the answer isn’t at the beginning of verse 45: “But when the Jews saw the crowds.” Now, when they were out in the city streets, in neutral or even foreign territory, in mixed company, when Gentiles are included in the audience being encouraged to turn to God, things change. They don’t like what Paul is preaching. More to the point, they don’t like who Paul is preaching to. God is our god, they thought. This party is by invitation-only. No Gentiles allowed. The Gentile water-fountain is around the corner.

Why the change? Well, it wasn’t because of doctrine or theology. As Paul points out in 13:47, they were arguing with their own prophet Isaiah, not him:

“I have set you for a light to the nations, so that you can be salvation-bringers to the end of the earth.”

Jewish election was not an end unto itself. God didn’t just want the Jews to receive divine light then keep it to themselves. The election of Israel was a means to an end. They were given light in order to shine it on the whole world. Blessed to bless. As far back as the calling of Abraham in Genesis 12, the Gentiles were in God’s sights.

So it seems to me that the Jews in Pisidian Antioch (and so many other places) were actually reacting from emotion rather than theology. Socially driven prejudice, not the Scriptures, flavored their decisions about what they thought God should and should not do.